Feminist Mix-tape: “Girls in the Hood”

Since gaining massive popularity and consistently increasing her fanbase over the last few years, Megan Thee Stallion is transforming the genre of rap through the incorporation of feminist ideology within her song lyrics while displaying how the racially charged controlling image of the Jezebel still persists today. Through her explicit lyrics in the majority of her songs, she confidently discusses her sexuality while empowering other women to do the same. Specifically, in her song “Girls in the Hood,” she refuses to appease the fragile male ego by voicing “You’ll never catch me callin’ these [guys] daddy (nope). I ain’t lyin’ ’bout my nut just to make a [guy] happy.” Megan encourages women to demand pleasure from sex while crushing the taboo surrounding the sexuality of women at large. However, her assertive compositions working against misogyny within the music industry is certainly not immune from controversy. Many people apply the controlling image of the Jezebel, a concept discussed by Patricia Hill Collins in her work Controlling Images and Black Women’s Oppression, to Megan Thee Stallion in response to her song lyrics and overall confidence. This controlling image of the Jezebel, stronger than just a stereotype, represents a “whore, or sexually aggressive woman [and] is central in the nexus of elite white male images of Black womanhood because efforts to control Black women’s sexuality lie at the heart of Black women’s oppression” (Collins 271). Labeling Megan as a Jezebel attempts to continue the music industry’s long history of misogyny and racism, as well as counter the massive influence she has over the public through her songs like “Girls in the Hood.” This example of the placement of racially charged controlling images on Black women is an issue womansim, essentially Black feminism, confronts that white feminism usually fails to acknowledge (Duke University). But despite this projection onto Megan and the overall pushback her work receives, she continues to encourage the empowerment of women, especially related to sexuality, and transform the general messages promoted by the music industry.